1and1 Webmail is Chronically Down

Posted on February 2, 2010
Filed Under Online Tools | Leave a Comment

We have been using 1and1 hosting service for years and somehow we got used to it becoming progressively worse. Recently 1and1 introduced new version of webmail interface, Webmail 2.0. While the old version was far cry from Yahoo Mail or Gmail, at least it worked for the most part of the day. A new version goes for vacation every day at unpredictable hours for unspecified period of time. That’s besides being slow, cluttered and user-hostile.

1and1 support is rather unhelpful. When you complain the best you get is a meaningless canned response from some call center in Philippines:

We apologize for this inconvenience that is causing you right now however, our admins are already informed about it and they are currently working on it to fix this issue and complete the maintenance as soon as possible. Your patience on this matter is highly appreciated.

These canned responses right out of script book were received hours after the problem has been resolved:

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience it has caused you. Rest assured that our Administrators are already working on it. You may send an email to our Complaints Department

12 hours after the problem has been resolved:

We do apologize for this inconvenience. Rest assured that you would still be able to access your email account. Our administrators are working on this case to be resolved.

Instead of improving customer service the evil minds in charge of 1and1 perfectionize the art of venting out customer’s rage - after every complaint to support service you’ll be asked to provide your feedback in “Satisfied with our Service?” survey.

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MOLECULAR BIOMETRICS CLOSES $12.5 MILLION SERIES B EQUITY FUNDING

Posted on January 23, 2010
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Molecular Biometrics, Inc., a metabolomics company developing novel clinical diagnostic tools for applications in personalized medicine, has completed a $12.5 million Series B financing. New investor Atlas Venture (Waltham, MA) led the round with participation from existing investors Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (Wayne, PA), and Oxford Bioscience Partners (Boston, MA).

The financing will allow the company to accelerate the global launch of the company’s lead product, ViaMetrics-E™, a rapid, non-invasive procedure that is designed to enhance in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes; implement manufacturing and product enhancements; and complete its ongoing FDA clinical study. ViaMetrics-E aids in the identification of viable embryos having the greatest reproductive potential, thus improving pregnancy rates in IVF, and ultimately reducing the number of embryos transferred along with the complications and healthcare costs that accompany multiple births.

“We believe ViaMetrics-E meets a clear unmet medical need and is well-positioned to tap into the $4 billion global IVF market,” said James A. Datin, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Safeguard Scientifics’ Life Sciences Group.

Metabolomics at Molecular Biometrics
Metabolomics is a complex scientific process that identifies and measures individual signals from many small molecular compounds produced during cellular metabolism. The company’s novel technology platform creates a ‘metabolomic profile’ or ‘fingerprint’ of an embryo’s potential viability, prior to possible embryo transfer in an IVF cycle. Metabolomic profiling provides a simultaneous evaluation of large numbers of biomarkers that reflect embryo development in culture media.

Molecular Biometrics developed a proprietary near infrared (NIR) biospectroscopy platform for its metabolomic applications. This technology rapidly measures the vibrational energy ‘signatures’ produced by small molecule functional groups, creating a unique profile of molecules that are descriptive of cellular function and viability. The signatures are further analyzed by proprietary bioinformatics, which evaluates the biological and chemical data produced by NIR biospectroscopy, using sophisticated computer and statistical techniques to distinguish between the often subtle differences that separate normal physiology from the onset or progression of disease, or an individual’s response to therapeutic intervention.

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ATI Radeon™ E4690 MXM Delivers High-Performance Graphics

Posted on January 23, 2010
Filed Under Military Technology | Leave a Comment

AMD introduced the ATI Radeon™ E4690 Mobile PCI Express module (MXM) for the graphics-intensive embedded systems. The industry-standard MXM 3.0 specification for graphics subsystems calls for reduced power, improved cooling capability and a lower z-height, enabling designers to create smaller, more efficient embedded systems and speed time to market. The ATI Radeon E4690 MXM features more than triple the 3D graphics performance of previously available solutions with low CPU utilization and brilliant picture quality.1 With its massively parallel, programmable architecture, the ATI Radeon E4690 MXM is designed for compute intensive, embedded applications such as digital signage, image recognition, signal processing and surveillance, arcade and casino games, medical imaging, and more.

embedded graphics

Working in collaboration with ALT Software, a leading supplier of 2D and 3D graphics, AMD is able to offer customers an alternative to custom programming by developing a standards-based parallel processing API, helping them to improve performance in embedded computing systems by leveraging the power of the graphics processor (GPU). For example, the GPU has become a standard hardware component in defense market, making it an ideal parallel processing solution.

Features:

“As the graphics requirements for embedded systems continue to increase, AMD has armed the ATI Radeon E4690 MXM with features that are important to our customers and done so within an industry-standard specification that helps simplify design, development and market delivery. Based on the successful ATI Radeon™ E4690 GPU, the ready-made ATI Radeon E4690 MXM solution provides the graphics performance, energy efficiency and reliability customers need. This, coupled with the module’s five year product life cycle, makes the ATI Radeon E4690 the easy answer for system designers looking to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace,” said Richard Jaenicke, director of Embedded Discrete Graphics for AMD.

“The ATI Radeon E4690 MXM module is an ideal solution for aerospace and defense industry. Its parallel processing capabilities open up a whole new range of applications including video surveillance, radar processing, target acquisition and synthetic vision. This module is ideal for manufacturers of embedded systems that require high-performance computing and advanced graphics,” says Dan Joncas, VP Sales ALT Software.

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QD Vision, Solid State Lighting Developer, Receives $3 Million Funding

Posted on January 23, 2010
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QD Vision, a quantum dot product company that delivers highly differentiated lighting and display solutions for solid state lighting and displays, announced today that DTE Energy Ventures has invested $3 million in the company. The funding will support QD Vision’s market expansion of quantum dot-based nanomaterials that enable major efficiency gains in high-quality solid-state lighting and flat panel displays. The investment follows a $10 million initial close of funding announced last month by the company.

QD Vision’s first product, announced in 2009, is a Quantum Light™ optic for a new high- efficiency, high-color-quality LED lamp developed by Nexxus Lighting, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEXS), that combines the warmth and color of incandescent bulbs with the efficiency of LED technology. The power-saving lamp, expected to ship in the first quarter of 2010, can be directly installed in standard Edison sockets used by today’s incandescent bulbs. Meanwhile, QD Vision is actively working with several worldwide major manufacturers to design its Quantum Light™ optic into a number of SSL lamps and fixtures.

Founded in 2004 by a research team from MIT, QD Vision has raised a total of $33 million in venture capital financing.

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Cloud Computing Made Real: New Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition

Posted on October 30, 2009
Filed Under Open Source | Leave a Comment

Canonical has just released Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition for free download. Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition introduces Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) as a fully supported technology. This is an open source cloud computing environment, based on the same Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as Amazon EC2, that will allow businesses to start taking advantage of the possibilities of private clouds. Private clouds allow businesses to reap the benefits of flexible compute environments while avoiding the security, regulatory or policy restrictions inherent in pushing data onto a public cloud.

“Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition puts Ubuntu users at a unique advantage of being able to quickly and simply deploy and manage cloud environments. We strongly believe that businesses which are already embracing virtualized environments will take the next logical step to these self-service, super-efficient architectures and that Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud will be at the heart of that effort,” says Matt Zimmerman, CTO of Canonical.

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) is powered by software from Eucalyptus Systems, and provides an open source software infrastructure for implementing on-premise cloud computing. UEC makes it extremely easy and fast for system administrators to set up, deploy and manage a cloud environment. Users familiar with elastic compute environments will be able to build similar infrastructure behind their firewall, avoiding any regulatory and security concerns that prevent many enterprises from taking advantage of cloud environments.

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is preparing a store capability that will provide users with easy access to ready-to-deploy appliances in the UEC environment. A first preview of this store is available in Ubuntu 9.10, together with a sample appliance. It will demonstrate the solution to software vendors and additional appliances will be added after the release.

The core server product and kernel have also received significant attention in this release. MySQL 5.1 has been added. The directory stack and Single Sign On tools have been upgraded for improved directory integration. Django now ships as a fully supported framework enhancing web server options.

There have been numerous kernel improvements to better support both Xen (guest) and KVM (host and guest) virtualization, and to improve caching performance. Support for the USB 3.0 protocol has been included to support super speed transfer rates when devices become available. System management support has been extended through support for the WBEM (web-based enterprise management) protocols which open up support of Ubuntu environment to the most popular system management tools currently deployed in enterprises. Ubuntu’s own systems management tool, Landscape, has added a dedicated server to its hosted version allowing deployments to be managed entirely within the firewall and will fully support Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition and Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.

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